I have beef, my friends. And I am not referring to my Texan penchant for consuming animal carcasses. I have beef with those tyrants known as “editors,” whose job description includes turning my column into the 1.0 version of its original form. Or, as I like to call it, ca-ca.
Of course I am speaking of a few weeks ago, when these people changed my article so much that (as a tactful friend put it at the time) “my eyes are bleeding.”
First they massacred my headline, changing the original title “Chicken Soup for the Lazy-Ass Soul” to “Embrace Mediocrity.”
Yes, why not? My editors already have!
Why are they messing with perfection, you ask? Editors like to do this every now and then to prove that they — as the experts say — got me by the short and curlies. And so on many a Friday, I awake to find they have changed my title, so that it now exudes humor of the Ernest Goes to Camp level. Take last year’s column I wrote regarding Parent’s Weekend. Although I’m not the cheeriest person around, I would never title a column “Parent’s Reekend” — especially when it concerns the people who control my college tuition. Reekend? Who green-lighted that one? I mean, really, what the hell does it mean? (other than being the Scooby Doo pronunciation of the word “weekend.”)
Sometimes, these brave warriors try and persuade me to make alterations, on the ignorant assumption that I will like their opinions more than my own. Most of the time their opinions, well, freak me out. A typical exchange might go something like this:
Them: So what exactly are you trying to say here?
Me: That “Booger” from the Revenge of the Nerds was by far the film’s most redeeming character.
Them: Well, why don’t we say instead that your brother is a thieving whore?
Me: Huh?
Them: We knew you’d like it!
So you all might wonder if I’ll cease to write for these people (and I use that term loosely). After all, there’s some tension now — possibly because I have taken to calling them “Rasputin.” And though I’m not positive as to who signed me up for the “Penis Euphemism o’ the Day” e-mails, I have my suspicions.
But fear not, for I shall surmount this totalitarianism and arise from the ashes as a badass. Because some years ago, my decision to write was secured by my discovery in the dictionary that the third definition under the word “author” is “God.” Need I say more? Thus, since then I have been pimping my usurped status as the Almighty, often quoting His gospel with such phrases as, “Bow down, yo.”
Of course, my original goal wasn’t to end up here, cast away into the back pages of the Scene section. I’d originally applied at the Daily to be a “serious journalist,” a.k.a. “a Yalie who cannot go out on Thursday nights.” But, alas, my fate was sealed when the YDN application requested I tell them “a little bit about myself.” Of course, I, in typically obnoxious fashion, submitted the following:
“Twenty-one-year-old Noelle Hancock hails from Texas, a state that is — in a word — electrifying! She is a student at Yale University where she was accepted two years ago (recount pending). After careful deliberation and a sixer, she decided to major in American Studies, a program that includes such classes as “The American Presidency: Who’s Your Favorite Dearly Departed Bigot?” and “We Could SO Kick Canada’s Ass!” She’s given up her dream of a career in crowd-surfing, and now hopes to obtain a job that will allow her to pay off her college loans that are currently approaching a google. Her lifelong goals include world peace and to be immortalized as a statue on a rearing steed.”
And so I was referred to Scene, with other nonsensical articles and reviews like, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — someone was ‘shrooming!” But I am not bitter. Though our editor-editee relationship has had its mishaps, I’m sure this article will fix everything. Soon my editors will pay homage to me as they recognize their rightful place as my disciples. Shut up — this is my fantasy.
Noelle Hancock is a junior in Saybrook. In Spanish class a couple weeks ago she had an oral exam which, contradictory to its name, is completely unexciting in nature.